Immigrants & Crime

The following are a list of resources about immigrants and crime.

2010

Immigrants and Crime: Perception vs. Reality

June 15, 2010 - Stuart Anderson, Immigration Reform Bulletin, Cato Institute

This paper discuses recent studies showing that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born.

2009

Just the Facts: County data confirms: undocumented immigrants are not major sources of crime

June 25, 2009 - Sutherland Institute

When combined with population trends, state-prisoner data suggests that undocumented immigrants coming to Utah obey the law once they are here. Looking at county-level data in Utah, of the 5,269 inmates in county jails, only 3.9 percent were identified as undocumented immigrants--nearly equal to the estimated undocumented proportion of the total state population in 2008 of four percent.

2008

From Anecdotes to Evidence: Setting the Record Straight on Immigrants and Crime

September 10, 2008 - Immigration Policy Center

Documents a falling crime rate while undocumented immigration indreased; the relatively liklihood of immigrants vs. natives to be in prison; and the fact that most immigrants in federal prison are there because of immigration violations, not violent crimes.

Citizens twice as likely to land in NJ prisons as legal, illegal immigrants

April 12, 2008 - Brian Donohue, Newark Star-Ledger

An analysis by the newspaper of data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections and the U.S. Census showed that although non-citizens made up 10 percent of the population, they made up only 5 percent of the prison population.

Rethinking Crime and Immigration

March 19, 2008 - Robert J. Sampson in Contexts, Vol. 7, No. 1, American Sociological Association

Immigration—even if illegal—is associated with lower crime rates in most disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. Increasing immigration tracks with the broad reduction in crime the United States has witnessed since the 1990s.

Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?

February 25, 2008 - Public Policy Institute of California

Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S. native to commit crime in California. Even among noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 – a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally – the authors find very low rates of institutionalization.

Are Deportable Aliens A Unique Threat To Public Safety?

January 15, 2008 - Laura J. Hickman, Portland State University and Marika J Suttorp, RAND Corporation in Criminology & Public Policy

The results revealed no difference in the rearrest rate of deportable and nondeportable aliens in terms of its occurrence, frequency, or timing. The results lend no support to the ubiquitous assertion that deportable aliens are a unique threat to public safety.

2007

Immigrants and Crime: Are They Connected?

December 17, 2007 - Immigration Policy Center

3-page fact sheet addressing myths about immigration and crimes.

The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native

February 26, 2007 - Ruben G. Rumbaut, Ph.D. and Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. for the Immigration Policy Center

Data from the census and other sources show that for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated.

2006

Do Immigrants Make Us Safer?

December 03, 2006 - Eyal Press, New York Times Magazine

This article discusses the works of some criminologists, particularly Robert Sampson of Harvard, who have examined the relationship between crime and immigrants and found them to be negatively correlated.